A quirl is a tangle; to quirl, to involve in a tangle.
1787. She thought there was something alive in her side, for, to use her own expression, she said she plainly perceived a tickling, and quirling in it…. She next complained of a quirling pain, that would last three or four hours with the utmost violence; and nothing would relieve her but strong anodynes…. The quirling pain was gone, her swallow was gone with it also.—American Museum, ii. 571, 574.
1830. We come out of the [canal] lock, all quirled up in a h—l of a twist.—Northern Watchman, Nov. 30 (Troy, N.Y.).
1885. Now suppose a manufacturer of gas fixtures had made a hundred big candelabra, and had stacked them in a disorderly way in a large room, the main pipes upward, and the crooks and querls of the branches on the floor. If you were requested to walk across that room you never could do it.—Barnet Phillips, ‘The Cruise of the “Wallowy,”’ Harper’s Mag., lxx. 219/1 (Jan.). (N.E.D.)
